In the lucrative world of private banking, establishing close relationships with the "right sort" is all-important. And as a senior private banker Edward Goodchild is used to long hours where "the work-life balance is heavily skewed towards work."

But recently Goodchild screeched to a halt and spent three months on paid leave, free to do whatever he wished just as long as it didn't involve speaking to any of those clients he'd so conscientiously courted.

Goodchild had accepted an offer to move from UBS to Coutts, and because the two banks are in direct competition he was, as he expected to be, put straight on to "gardening leave".

It's a quaint euphemism that conjures up images of businessmen deadheading roses. In practice the term describes the period of enforced but fully paid leave that professionals, usually in positions of middle to senior management, are placed on when they move to a competitor or are made redundant.

During their time "in the garden" employees must not speak to their previous clients and cannot undertake any other work. They are marched unceremoniously out of the office the minute their departure is announced in order to prevent them from poaching clients and accessing sensitive strategic information that their new employer might be very interested in - or, in the case of disgruntled employees, to prevent them from wiping files and causing damage.

Gardening leave is common practice in the financial sector, where client connections are important. "There's always a discussion about how much of the relationship belongs to the individual and how much of the relationship belongs to the institution," says Goodchild. "The understanding is that you may not initiate the conversation." But if the client calls you, you're not going to hang up? "No."

Goodchild spent his gardening leave at home with his family who "at first clearly thought it was a bit unusual". Instead of weeding the flowerbeds he fell naturally into the managerial role of building foreman on the renovation work being done on his house. "I think the builder thought I was going to get up every morning and go to work and come back late at night and leave him in peace, but actually I was there all day." The biggest bonus was time with his children. "Being able to drop them off at school every morning is rare, and it's lovely to be able to do that. It also allows you to take a breather and to reassess what you want to do with your career and reflect on some of the attitudes you carry."

The downside was that while he was gambolling about, his friends were working: "It can be quite isolating."

Richard Langdon wasn't so lucky. As a victim of the City credit crunch he was made redundant from JPMorgan and is now on full pay, but effectively bound and gagged during his period of notice to keep him out of the market.

"The City is a very paranoid place at the moment. There's no job security," says Langdon. And as the saying goes: "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you." Langdon considers himself to be on redundancy payment. Gardening leave sounds a little too peachy for something so brutal and hazardous: "You get taken into a meeting room then taken out again and you don't know who is left at the end of the process."

Football management is another field in which gardening leave has historically applied, though managers typically wriggle out of their gardening leave clauses by waving large sums of money around. "These more than equate to any compensation that they could seek to recover for breaching the garden leave clause," explains Clive Howard, a partner at Russell Jones & Walker, an employment law firm that represents the League Managers' Association. Nobody adheres to the law so instead a "liquidated compensation clause" is inserted. "It's just macho competitiveness to try to enforce these restrictions and garden leave clauses," says Howard, "but football clubs don't really care."

Gardening leave is a handy tool for employers when there's a sensitive or disciplinary issue, particularly in the public sector. "You hear stories about the NHS where consultants are on gardening leave for four years because they've been charged with some kind of misbehaviour," says Mike Emmott, employee relations adviser for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Public bodies, frightened of bad news stories, will pay money to silence a troublesome employee. "The health service is very nervous about publicity and there are times when they'll bend over backwards to avoid bad news getting out." Tracey Temple, John Prescott's former mistress, was put on gardening leave for this reason.

Gael Parker* was put on gardening leave for six weeks when she questioned the transparency of the accounting system at a charity she worked for. "I was told to come in overnight when the staff weren't there and take my things." She was placed on gardening leave and ordered to sign a confidentiality agreement. Although it was the end of her career in the charity sector she decided not to become a whistleblower because she thought the charity was otherwise worthwhile and didn't want to damage it. "It's not like bringing down Coca-Cola," she says. The charity changed its accounting systems and Parker moved into a different sector altogether.

But for those lucky enough to be put on gardening leave because they've handed in their notice and have a good job to go to, time "in the garden" is a rare opportunity to chase a few dreams. "It's the best feeling in the world," says Mark Acred who recently moved from City Index to head business development at CMC Markets. During his six weeks on gardening leave he and his wife bought a house, invested in fine wines and wrote numerous business plans. He also took off on a sports car rally to the south of France - and got paid for it all.

Ken Vanderschee is now in Canada travelling down the west coast on three months' gardening leave, having left his old job as an energy trader at BP before moving to a competitor in the UK. He doesn't see the fact that he was marched off the premises at BP as any particular slur on his integrity. "I would question the integrity of any firm that would make you work during that time. Because what are you going to do? You can't trade, you're not going to give them any interesting insights into the market. All you're going to do is try and take information from them."

Unlike an unpaid sabbatical, paid gardening leave isn't something you can time with any precision. So all of a sudden you get three months off, yet none of your friends and family do. But what the hell - you're in a truck whizzing down to LA, and life is sweet. "In a sense it's your purest vacation because you can't do any work," says Vanderschee. "Usually when you take a vacation you come back and there's a huge backlog of work. That's a great plus."